The mind space was no longer a sanctuary of soul; it had become a battlefield between two blurred sapphire spirits trying to complete themselves.
Two figures, identical in their ghostly, blue-white luminescence, collided repeatedly.
Each exchange of telekinetic space and mental force sent ripples through the misty sea of the Mind space.
But with every clash, the original Dreleon felt a piece of his mental authority slipping away.
Every punch and kick sipped his mind, it was colonizing his mind, seizing control of the very space they stood upon.
"This can't go on," Dreleon thought, his spiritual breath coming in ragged, silent gasps.
His ethereal form blurring more.
He tried to weave a net of space to trap his shadow, but the duplicate shattered it with a casual flick of its wrist.
"Hahaha!" The duplicate's laughter was a manic echo that vibrated in Dreleon's teeth.
It fought with a madness and a lack of restraint that the original had.
It wasn't worried about preserving the mind space; it wanted to burn the house down just to rule a ruin.
Then.
It began as a pinprick in the center of Dreleon's chest—a stinging, venomous heat that felt as if his very blood had turned into shards of glass.
It wasn't a spiritual pain; but a physical pain influencing his soul.
His heart hammered against his ribs with such violence that it felt like it was trying to breach his flash and bone to escape his body.
The agony forced Dreleon to a halt.
He stumbled over, clutching his chest, his golden eyes wide with shock.
In that split second of vulnerability, the duplicate did not hesitate.
It lunged forward, its fist reinforced by a dense layer of compressed space.
CRACK.
The blow caught Dreleon squarely in the jaw, sending his spirit tumbling across the jade platform.
He skidded for dozens of meters, his vision flickering like a dying candle.
He tried to stand again on his feet, to re-focus on the threat, but the pain was too intense.
And it was spreading to the whole body.
The pain slowly crawled up to his throat and down his limbs, a thick, suffocating heat that smelled of iron and ancient fire.
Suddenly, a halo of black-red energy erupted from Dreleon's soul.
It wasn't a gentle glow; it was a violent discharge of energy that scorched the surrounding clouds.
His blue-white spirit form, normally serene and ethereal, began to churn and darken.
The sapphire light was swallowed by a deep, blackish red.
From his temples, two dark protrusions tore upward—horns made of solidified shadow and dried blood.
The duplicate froze.
Its manic laughter died in its throat, sensing the changes.
Being a fragment of Dreleon's own mind, it felt the strange shift in the environment of the world.
The pressure emanating from the transformed Dreleon was no longer human or Lion-like.
It was something older, something predatory that viewed the entire mind space as a cage it was about to break.
Despite the blinding agony of the transformation, a cold, singular instinct took over Dreleon's consciousness.
He didn't think about techniques, and didn't think about space.
He simply saw a core in the duplicate—the flickering heart of the emotion that gave it life.
Dreleon moved.
He wasn't a blur; but started to perfect his form, appearing like an ancient demon with deep red flame.
He appeared before the stunned duplicate in a heartbeat.
His hand, now clawed and pulsing with that black-red heat, drove straight into the duplicate's chest.
The duplicate gasped.
Because it was a fragment of a soul that still believed it was real, it felt the phantom sensation of its heart; which contained his fragmented emotion being crushed.
The duplicate's eyes met Dreleon's—now swirling with a terrifying, blood-red hunger.
In that moment, the duplicate's will broke.
It had sought to replace an outstanding human, but it realized it was facing a Monster.
The hope that had fueled the duplicate's existence evaporated.
Without that emotional anchor, its spirit form began to crumble, dissolving into flakes of useless blue light.
As the duplicate disintegrated, a rush of waste spiritual energy flooded the area.
Instinctively, the transformed Dreleon opened his mouth and inhaled.
The energy was pulled into him, but the Cloning process was already ruined.
The energy was too chaotic, and got absorbed by the black-red eruption.
Suddenly, Dreleon felt weak in his mind space,
The transformation began to recede as quickly as it had arrived.
The horns dissolved into smoke, and the red hue faded back into a pale, sickly blue.
A wave of absolute exhaustion, heavier than any mountain, crashed over Dreleon.
His knees buckled.
Dreleon collapsed onto the jade floor, his consciousness slipping into a dark, dreamless void.
The Snake sat atop the cloud, her sapphire eyes narrowed as she watched Dreleon's physical body tremble and then go still.
She had felt the pulse of that Black-Red energy—a flicker of something that even her ancient senses found distasteful.
She didn't move to help him.
Her face remained
mask of cold indifference.
"I gave you a month, little lion," she whispered to the wind, her voice devoid of pity.
"You've wasted half of it on a failure.
You have fifteen days left to produce a result, or don't blame me for being ruthlessness."
Dreleon lay unconscious on the cold platform, the countdown to his survival ticking louder than ever in the silence of the high clouds